


Wax and Wane

by spontaneite



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Awesome Strifes, BAMF!Cloud, F/M, Jenova horror, M/M, Our Werewolves Are Different, Pack Dynamics, Planet mysticism, Unorthodox parenting, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-25 20:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1661144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spontaneite/pseuds/spontaneite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For as long as history remembers, the Strife family have defended Nibelheim, living apart from the humans they protect. But times are changing - werewolves are no longer welcome, and a sickness grows from the heart of the Reactor. Cloud, the first of the new generation of Strifes, will be the first in centuries to leave the mountain, in search of a future for his kind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Next in Line

.1.

On the far edge of Nibelheim, unsheltered by the mountain's cold stone, and perpetually smothered in ice and snow, stands a quiet, solitary house. It is a queer thing, a lonely thing, that scarcely ever breathes smoke from its chimneys or bears light in its windows, and it is one of the oldest houses in the village, built to stand the test of time. No one goes near it, except children on dares to knock on the door or peer through the frosted glass, usually on eerie full-moon nights accompanied by much drama and the occasional horror story. It is the subject of many folk tales, rumours, and village legends, and it is wholly and thoroughly abandoned. Except for a day each season.

Skulda Strife comes down from the mountain as a herald of the changing seasons. She clears the ice and snow from her roof and walls, she sweeps out the dust and lights a fire in the hearth, and then she comes to make her rounds of the town. She speaks with the Mayor, sells fur and meat and tooth and scale at the markets, and buys all the little things that can't be built from what the wilds provide. Invariably she is pointed at, whispered and stared at, and keeps gossip lively for weeks after she leaves. Invariably, in the weeks after she leaves, a new season ushers in. The town lives and works by her comings and goings, for it is known that when one of her kind comes, it is to herald a new season.

When the pattern breaks, it is never good news.

When the dragons over-breed and a bold fledgling comes to harangue the livestock, Strife comes to Nibelheim. When wolves not her own intrude on the town, snapping and snarling, Strife comes to Nibelheim. When a new season draws near, Strife comes to Nibelheim. So it has been, and so it shall always be.

Until, one day, Strife comes to Nibelheim to herald Winter, and doesn't leave.

Whispers wax and wane like the moon above as smoke trickles from the two chimneys, candles dance in the windows, and Skulda Strife does not return to the mountain.

Then, wolves come to Nibelheim. Not the strays, the desperate ones apart from kin and territory, which are a danger to all in the village. But Skulda's wolves, her ravening horde. First one, then two, then three until finally a massive pack of over forty individuals are yapping and snarling and wrestling on the edge of the pine forest, wandering between the trees and the lonely house.

Three individuals among them are larger than the rest, command more presence, and most visibly of all, are adorned. Wood-bead necklaces, metal arm-bands, even earrings decorate their frames, weaving into the fur. In some, fangs and claws flash as ornaments, and even the tell-tale shine of materia weaves into the twine. It speaks very clearly of what they are. And then, of course, there is Skulda herself – and never were there wolves as large as Strifes. She towers over the rest, more thoroughly adorned than all of the other three put together, and positively laden with Materia – most noticeably, a single red, glimmering like blood from her chest – and she slips between skin and fur with impudence. Human, she looks tiny, puny, much shorter than the average woman; it's almost a mockery.

On the fourth day, they finally come with Skulda to the village. The exiles stand beside her just as wild and dishevelled, as if they belong. They visit their families one by one, and then leave again, melting slowly into fur and fangs at the edge of the forest.

On the fifth day, the first person dares to ask Missus Strife why, exactly, she and the wolves are there. And she declares, wearing a sunny smile, that she is expecting.

The gossip which is a small town's lifeblood positively explodes.

.2.

Skulda Strife's pregnancy is in the same shameful, unspeakable manner as it always is for her family. She lives all year with the wolves, all her life with the wolves, and with neither partner nor husband comes to the ancestral cottage with a quickening in her womb. She remains active through all of the autumn and all of the winter, disappearing each evening with the wolves yipping hunt-calls at her heels, and the nights are full of howling.

It's a frightful time for everyone, needless to say. No one likes having savages around, or wolves, or exiles, and most of all, no one wants a Strife staying so long in the area. Which, as memory tells, she will certainly be doing. For years, even!

.3.

She is a sentinel, a guard, a protector of the village, even if the village has forgotten. She knows her duty. She passes the months as she always does, leading her wolves against the many monsters of the mountain, glutting them on flesh and blood, but returns each day to the little stone cottage that she was born in. Crooning softly to the smooth curve of her belly, she weaves teeth and claws into leather cord and twine, shaping strong lengths. She weaves materia into little wire cages and then they into the leather and twine, and from the smith in town she commissions the supplies she will need to properly provide for her child.

Over five gradual months, her child grows, and her belly grows heavy, and she can't run quite as far as she is used to. But they know what to do; they won't suffer her absence, so long as it is short.

It is late Spring when she senses her time approaching. She descends to the cottage basement and scrapes for hours at the cold earth at the centre where there is no floor, digging herself a small, dark alcove which feels safe. Then she stuffs herself full of meat, retreats to the den, and waits.

.4.

Skulda heaves for hours in agony, keening and growling all through the night. She hears her wolves pacing around the cottage, on guard, on alert during the alpha female's most vulnerable time.

Then, finally, with the half-moon high above, Skulda gives birth to a healthy son.

She names him Cloud.

.5.

She bites away the birthing film from his mouth, then licks the whole of it away. She feeds him and ties his first pendant around his neck, and then she puts Materia in his hands as they ripple into being from paws. His tiny fingers close tightly on the little green orb, his wide, dark eyes too young yet to see anything other than how it glows. But he is a Strife to his bones; he stares at it, fascinated, and does not let go.

.6.

She stays with him, underground, for five days, murmuring and growling and nuzzling at him. She is half out of her human mind, wolf is strong in her for this, instinct knows what to do with a wolf cub, but still she pushes through to teach him the ways of Strife as well as Wolf.

At the end of those five days, she leaves him in the den and wanders out in wolf-form to the cool air of a Nibelheim night. She goes to the forest's edge and waits, patiently, while all the pack yip and murmur with delight, clamouring around her like excited puppies, all competing to catch the scent of the new little one. Finally she grows tired and shoves past them, stuffing herself on the fresh-killed carcass nearby. She gathers the scents of the more important individuals and then withdraws back to the den, taking some choice items with her.

Little Cloud, in the absence of her warmth, has shifted seamlessly into his own beautiful downy fur, whining with a cub's voice for her return. She presses him back into the loose earth and feeds him. Then she introduces the pack members' scents to him as they hang on her fur, one by one, and with growls and tackles and little nips at his scruff teaches him how he should behave in their presence. Days pass, and Skulda flits in and out of the den, bearing each time new scents and new things for her child. His eyes pale to the same clear, beautiful blue as hers, and begin to flash in the meagre light from the cottage above.

.7.

She puts a dagger in his fingers when he is two weeks old. He grasps happily at it, as does he anything she gives him, and she waits patiently as he does what he usually does with his gifts – waves it around and bites it with toothless gums.

She takes it back from him as he yelps at the pain of blood blooming from his mouth and a thin line along his face. She watches his form ripple between skin and fur in distress, setting in a little wolf shape that curls up and whimpers. A few minutes in she pushes him over and licks the blood away, watching the blood slow steadily beneath his fur, and the beginnings of healing. She waits for him to become a furless newborn again, and then puts the knife back in his hand. He first tries to push it away, frightened, but after much urging reluctantly accepts it, holding it far more warily with his stubby little fingers.

He has learned.

.8.

A Strife infant does not grow as quickly as wolves do. A wolf mother would have been out of the den, with the cub, in the space of three weeks. Skulda, urged by her atavistic wolf-mind, recognises that he is yet far too small, and stays in the den with him day after day, the weeks passing like water through her fingers.

He is too young for human words, but the language of wolves is simple, and comes easily when he has the right shape. He is young, but Strife enough to be taught things.

One by one she presses Materia into his fingers, sniffing at him, encouraging him. She takes them, periodically, and sets little embers into the soil, little static jolts, little stabs of cold. Skulda gives them back and croons at him until, finally, he makes his first sparks at three weeks of age. She bowls him over and smothers him in wolf-praise, happy and proud.

.9.

Magic and Materia are the toys of a Strife child; they need no other. Skulda watches, brimming with pride, as week by week he sits in the dark and learns the way of Materia and its power. He tires quickly at first, but his progress is quick, and day by day he plays longer. The channels that connect magic to the soul imprint themselves in an almost discernible process – five days after the first sparks come the first fire, a little yellow thing that bites at his fingers like the knife had bitten his flesh, and he drops the orb and whimpers, cradling his hand until it heals, and then fire too is something he has learned.

Cloud learns the danger of electricity just as quickly, but ice takes him longer. He is six weeks old when, fascinated, he realises that ice is physical in a way that lightning and fire simply aren't, and spins bizarre, elaborate shapes of frost into the den. He has created an alarmingly large block of ice when he begins to realise that it's cold, and he doesn't like it so much after all, but Skulda won't let him out of the den or snuggle next to her for warmth. Instead, she hands him the Fire Materia over and over until he realises the ways of ice and fire, and how they can ail each other.

Soon, though, Skulda begins to grow bored. She has a firm, instinctive block against the idea of taking her offspring out of the den early, and of course leaves periodically to feed herself, but a mother can only watch a child play with fire for so long. After a while she brings her crafts down to the den, and some days weaves leather and twine and tooth and claw together with glimmering shards of Materia that catch Cloud's eye. He reaches for them, only to be disappointed in how they refuse to answer his call like the spheres do. Other days, she carves at stray branches with her knives, making beads, pendants, and little figures – which Cloud promptly appropriates, in most cases.

The first time Cloud sets her on fire and giggles as she jumps up and snarls, she growls deeply and threateningly at him, and then sets him on fire with the mastered Materia she has around her neck. He shrieks and then howls, going wolf-shape, for the five seconds she sustains it and whimpers for a further three, whereupon she casts a very slight Restore at him. Then she hands him the Materia. No fool child, he quickly makes the connection, and is soon literally glowing with health. He isn't very happy with her for the next few hours, and Skulda knows that human mothers would be horrified. But neither she nor Cloud are human, and pain is the best teacher in the world.

.10.

Cloud is too young to learn words. Too young for human concepts, or knife-work, or wood-carving, or weaving. But Materia is natural. It is a part of the world, as much as water and stone are, and using the magic you are born with is as natural as moving. As natural as how the wolf runs, the fish swims, and predator strikes prey; but as in so many other ways, humans have grown apart from nature. By the time youths first hold a glowing sphere in their hands, their body has forgotten the instinct to call at it, and they will forever be crippled in its ways.

But Skulda held Materia in her hand mere minutes after she first breathed. She knows magic like she knows her own scent, and her son will be no different.

.11.

After four months underground, Skulda casts an eye over her son and admits to herself, warily, that it's about time he emerge.

So, finally, she sighs and ties Cloud's Materia – his, that she spawned by mastering her own – into elaborate wire nets, wire that she weaves into and around the same leather cord and twine she uses for almost all jewellery she makes. Fire, Ice, and Lightning she fastens around his little furry neck, which he noses at, puzzled. Restore she fixes into a sturdy arm-band that fixes onto his stubby little leg, front right. She nips at his ear when he messes with them, then ripples into fur and pushes him out of the den.

He is alarmed at first, squirming around her nose, but then realises where he is being led, and stumbles excitedly alongside her. She has to carry him up the stairs by his scruff, and he hangs bonelessly until put down, whereupon he comes to life and skitters clumsily around the little cottage in delight, sniffing and squeaking at everything. She lets him investigate for ten minutes, then rolls her eyes and pushes him out of the door.

Little Cloud freezes for a moment, inhaling the hundreds of new scents and peering at the bright, bewildering world around him. Then, the escalating excitement of the pack, waiting at the tree-line, catches his attention. The massive crowd of individuals, ears erect, shove and pace around in a frenzy, all fixated on the pup whose scent Skulda has been acquainting them with for the past four months. Their scents, in turn, are something Cloud is familiar with; she leads him to the pack and watches as they all nose at him, all crowd around in the same delirious excitement as they'd shown when they first scented his birth on her.

She is relieved to see that she taught him correctly – he knows to roll over and show his belly to the older, bigger wolves. He also, to her surprise, begins nipping at their faces in a way she hadn't taught him. She would need to start feeding him meat soon.

After the pack are mostly done, Skulda shrugs out of her fur and picks up her pup, coaxing him into his ungainly, chubby little human form, and swaddles him in the furs she'd brought out with her. She brings him to Grend, Kjora, and Futhar, the exiles in her pack who still keep names. They ripple into humanity and carefully, one by one, hold him in their arms, smiling as he squirms like the puppy he is in their grasp. She tells them his name, then takes him into town and shows him about before the staring eyes, presenting him and naming him to them all.

“Are those Materia, around his neck?” Mayor Lockhart asks uneasily, to break the awkward silence he'd spent staring at her baby bemusedly.

“Yes.” She answers, calmly, and taps at the middle on his pendant, the Ice. Perfectly happy to follow her direction, frost begins to curl in the air, then falls. Unused to being off the ground, Cloud watches it descend to the ground, startled, as the Mayor flinches. “The first thing a Strife child learns is how to use Materia.”

Watching the ice form and shatter like grass as it tumbles, he haltingly questions “is that safe?” and then jolts visibly when Cloud, wanting to get to the ground, ripples into fluffy pup-form and tries to wriggle out of her hands.

He stares at her child in horror. Like he's something wrong.

Skulda hides her own ice behind a razor-smile, showing teeth, and replies “perfectly.” Then she bites admonishingly at her son's ear, and walks away without so much as a goodbye.

.12.

With Cloud old enough to be left without her for fair periods of time, Skulda assigns Kjora to his care and for the first time in too long takes to wolf form and rallies the pack with a high hunt-howl – they take it up and the edge of the forest comes alive with wolfsong, thin and loud and chilling as she runs into the trees, the others at her heels. Her pack has hunted in her absence, and her alpha male defended the territory, but they've had to remain close to town, to her and her cub, and the borders have gone unpatrolled for too long.

It is as she'd expected – further from town, further into the forest, monsters are abundant, having bred into a frenzy in the large pack's absence. Her wolves themselves are starving – they've hunted the acres near Nibelheim till nothing remains, and she knows some of them will grow weak soon if they don't eat. So, in a frenzy, she conducts the kind of slaughter that her father had warned her of, for the days she'd have her own child, and stay in one place for far longer than wolves are meant to.

Blood-drenched, exhausted, and very happy, she and her pack haul carcasses back to the edge of town and pile them together, and the massive pack falls on the meat hungrily as soon as she takes her fill of the best parts. Cloud greets her exuberantly, licking and nipping at her muzzle, and with consideration she regurgitates a little meat for him. He takes to it well, but she knows it will be a while yet before he is weaned.

It takes two weeks to properly secure the territory. She loses three wolves culling dragons, and the whole pack howls for their absence when night comes. The loners skittering on the edges of their range, hearing the vacancy, warily offer their voices, far away, and so in mere days she gets back the missing numbers. It is the way of wolves.

The chiefest blessing of having such a large pack, though, is that no other than the most desperate of packs dare encroach on the territory, so long as they continue to hear the numbers from the night howling. She marks the edges of the range to deter any of the bolder wolves, and returns to business, culling dragons. Before long she has tanned a number of new lovely dragonscale hides, and woven all the teeth and claws she doesn't sell onto jewellery. 

Kjora remains the primary care-giver while she is away in daylight hours – Skulda trusts wolves to care properly for Cloud, but not to raise him. He is a child of both worlds, and she knows well the dangers of letting him become too wild. There is a reason a Strife always leads.

.13.

There is no escaping what they are. 

Skulda is adult, and she is a Strife. When the Planet sings each month to the full moon, Lifestream rising and flaring beneath her feet, she can resist the way that delirium pulls at her mind, the way that base, wild instinct rears as a tide to wash all else away.

Humans call the beasts that roam the lands 'monsters', and Nibel wolves are in that category. In reality, most are only animals who bear magic, and attack and prey upon each other as their natures dictate – but what makes humanity deem them monstrous is that each and every one of those strong enough, magical enough, with enough lifestream running in their veins, will attack any human that draws near without remorse. It is not always prey drive, though many will certainly eat the corpse. It is not always their territorial nature, either. It is simply because they are humans, and humans feel wrong.

Kjora, Futhar, and Grend can't feel it. They were born human, and raised human. For all that they use Materia now, they feel distinctly unpleasant when in human skin. But she wasn't born among mankind. She can feel unease flare in her every time she draws near to a human, a species with such abundant magic inherent to them, who let it rot within. Unused, magic grows stagnant, insular, the channels grow thin and it feels disgusting to her sense, just as if their flesh were rotting and she could smell the stench of it, as if there is a sickness beneath the skin that needs to be bitten out like sour pus in a bad wound. After so many years, she is inured to it, but...

When the moon waxes, it pulls at the tides. It pulls at the Lifestream just the same, and it rises beneath the Planet's shell, quivering and bubbling, so close to the surface. Her magic rises with it, singing just the same, but humans' – theirs is still, stagnant, dead, and when everything is moving and the sense of life is deafening it feels so, so abhorrent, it's unendurable.

It is a well recorded phenomenon that monster attacks are far more common at the full moon.

Cloud reacts to the smell of wrong amplified a hundredfold by the moon just as she'd expect. But if she could learn to resist it, so could he.

.14.

There are a few other cubs in the pack who Cloud plays with, but they quickly outstrip him in growth and soon he is without peers. He thus amuses himself by harassing adults and playing with Materia – and Skulda is glad that her exiles supervise him, because otherwise many a house-fire would have begun. As he grows more proficient, she begins to travel regularly between the mountain's many mako springs and caves, searching shrewdly for natural Materia. But they are scarcer than they were once, and she gathers few that she didn't have already. In the end, most are of the sort that won't be suitable until Cloud is older – Mystify, Poison, Transform....they're invariably bad news for whatever he would practice them on, and he isn't old enough to know better.

After some consideration, though, she bullies her exiles for the unlevelled spawns of those she'd given them years ago, and gives Cloud one new orb: Earth.

Earth delights the little boy. He laughs with glee as the dirt reshapes around him, and he is shortly throwing it in people's faces.  
.15.

At eight months, Cloud's milk teeth grow in, needle-sharp in wolf shape, but mostly flat as human. He begins to gnaw on everything, and Skulda's only defences against merciless assault of her tail are well-applied jolts of static, and some Barrier when he gets too annoying.

It means, for one thing, that she starts letting him chew his own meat, and for another stops letting him anywhere near her mammaries.

It also means that he is now at genuine risk of accidentally infecting someone.


	2. Blessing

Wax and Wane

Chapter 2

 

.16.

 

Cloud is a year and a half of age when Skulda tracks down a young, reasonably weak monster, a sonic speed that she catches in her teeth and mauls so that it can't fly. Then she puts it in front of Cloud and lets loose a quick, high rally call. His ears perk instinctively at the sound he has learned means _hunt,_ and therefore _food_ , and he comes forwards to bat at the creature warily, sniffing at the stench of its blood and fear. It attacks him, viciously, and he backs away with a yelp, backing away again when it advances, screeching.

 

He recoils as his injury, a large cut on his leg, begins to bleed, head whipping around to stare pleadingly at her for help, whimpering. Human maternal instinct screams that he is _too young_ , and to _help him_ before he dies, but her wolf mind and rational thought knows better. He is a young Strife, and it will take far worse injuries to risk his life. Still...

 

She helpfully sends a spike of ice at it, to get things going a little. Cloud's whimpers stop immediately, and he straightens up, intrigued, as the creature keens in pain.

 

Tentatively, he sets it on fire.

 

Encouraged by her murmurs and the monster's frantic attempts to escape, her son's prey-drive awakens, and he comes forwards, biting at it as he attacks it intermittently with magic. He quickly learns to skitter out of the way of its attacks, and though it takes him a long while of him more or less playing with the poor creature as he wears it down (the monster _is_ high level, even if it is injured) it eventually concedes to death, falling still with a shudder, bleeding sluggishly all over.

 

Skulda takes human shape to murmur praise at him and rub his ears, then leaves him to chew awkwardly at his first kill.

 

.17.

 

“Wof,” Cloud announces to the world at large from his position on the cottage's wolfskin rug, and Skulda immediately whips around to praise the uttering of his first word. The boy, who spends more time in human form now that it isn't quite so immobile and clumsy, beams at her and begins jabbering nonsense at her, a bizarre amalgam of almost-words and wolf sounds.

 

She might one day tell her son how concerned for his human development she'd been getting. She herself had learned to speak late – it's only natural, growing up with wolves – but three years of age was a bit much, even for wolf-children. She'd witnessed his intelligence and shrewdness, of course, but speech and human manner was different. Leave it too long and he might never learn. The Sentinels, certainly, have human intelligence, but no understanding of their ways at all. They are _wolf_ , through and through.

 

As it is, she is only incredibly relieved when that day proves to be Cloud's verbal breakthrough, and he begins to spend more and more of his time in her presence human, inspired by this new power of speech. Wolf-talk, while delightfully bereft of lies and hidden meaning, is rather simple, and does not suit the complex patterns his thoughts would be starting to take from her guidance.

 

.18.

 

Her son, after an hour of happily fumbling with a block of soft wood and a dagger, presents to her a crude four-legged figure which is probably a wolf. She smiles and praises what is actually a very accomplished work of carving, for a four year old, and smiles more at the way the scents of his delight and enjoyment so vividly colour the air. Then she inspects it more closely, and tilts her head a little. Maybe it isn't a wolf at all.

 

“What is it, Cloud?” She asks, finally. “Another wolf?”

 

He goes quiet for a second, his young face pensive. “Wolf person?” He offers, tentatively. “Like us. And Kjora and Futhar and Grend.” He still speaks with a bit of a growl, and a half-whining edge to his softer consonants, but she's mostly trained it out by now. It's the half-wolf, half-Nibelheim accent that they will always have.

 

“Ah.” She murmurs, turning the figure over in her hands. Yes, she can see it. The limbs and torso are all thinner, longer than they are for his wolf carvings. And only the top has the messy splintered carving he apparently feels represents fur. “It's _very_ good, then.”

 

He preens, and before he can reach for another block she sternly orders him to Esuna and Cure his cuts. She doesn't want them healing with splinters underneath.

 

Cloud does as he is told, green light running for a few moments over his fingers he touches to the Materia, then he retrieves his knife and another block of the soft wood she'd cut herself from the centre of a bough. He stares at it with uncommon solemnity for several moments, then speaks. “Ma?” He voices, slowly.

 

Skulda glances over to meet his eyes with her own, both the same, familiar blue, as clear as the skies on those rare sunny days. “Yes, Cloud?”

 

“What are we?”

 

She considers her words carefully before speaking. “We,” she answers slowly, “are Strifes. We are an ancient line born of beast blood, and have a duty to protect humans. But the rest of the world would call us werewolves.”

 

He nods slowly. “...Yeah. That's what I heard.” Another pause. “And other people can catch it. If we bite them, or if they get our blood in them. Like a bug.”

 

“Yes, Cloud. Just like a bug.” Her heart _hurts._ Just four years old, and already exposed to the _horrible_ way people view their kind these days. “They call it lycanthropy. They call it a disease.”

 

“...Are we a disease, ma?” Her boy asks, softly.

 

“ _No,_ Cloud.” She refutes fiercely, pulling him close to nuzzle at his unruly hair. “What we are is a _blessing._ ”

 

.19.

 

Cloud will always remember the day he was told, _finally_ , that he could accompany the pack when they went hunting. He'd have to stay well back, but if he were positioned right, he could chip in with his magic.

 

He is brimming with youthful exuberance, in a little wolf-shape that isn't quite so clumsy any more, his fifth year bringing a growth spurt in both forms which is more than welcome. His mother fastens all his Materia, talismans, and miscellaneous adornments onto his small frame, then nods with satisfaction and declares him ready for his first pack outing. Both she and two of the exiles have to cast Hastes on him for him to keep pace with the massive adult wolves, baying to the skies their fervour for the hunt.

 

In the forest, searching for a scent, is when he first meets what his mother calls the Sentinels.

 

They are Nibel wolves, but _massive_ , the size only werewolves should be. And despite being the grey-and-brown of all the others, their eyes gleam a blue that is very familiar. They wear each a single talisman, the central carving in empty blue materia accompanied up the twine by six carved dragon fangs. All five of them, two visibly very old, come forwards to sniff at him, eyes bearing a startling intelligence. His mother says only that they are as brothers to the Strifes, and should be treated with the greatest of respect. He sniffs at them curiously, scenting the sure blood-tells that these wolves are kin, and his young mind wonders.

 

Then the trackers catch the scent of the yearling dragon, and the hunt begins.

 

.20.

 

His mother gives him one fang as a reward for his contribution, and tells him that when he first leads a successful dragon-hunt, he will have all the teeth, all the claws, and every inch of its gleaming skin as trophy.

 

.21.

 

Cloud is learning basic carving and clay-shaping from his mother, not long after his first hunt, when a disaster almost happens.

 

It is the full moon, and she has all four of her werewolves in the cottage, going to the window every now and then to snarl at her pack, and remind them that the human town isn't for attacking. Her three exiles have control now, after these long years of struggling, but she still doesn't entirely trust them without a strong alpha to keep them docile. And her son – well. He's worryingly lacking in control for his age – the stench of humanity is still too deeply offensive for him to withstand. Even if they left for a hunt, he'd never keep himself from following the trails he shouldn't.

 

For the whole of the first night and most of the morning, everything goes smoothly. At noon she has to briefly leave the cottage to break up a fight in the pack – it's natural, and common. Usually for the three full moon days, they'd be running, hunting, letting off the high energy. But stuck here by the youth of her cub, who will not be able to restrain himself during any full-moon hunt, and forbidden from attacking the humans...the monster energy of her wolves drives them to fight each other. Sometimes it goes too far, and the injuries kill them. So she sprints up to them, bowls the instigator over, and holds him down with her long teeth over his jugular, growling, until he goes limp and submissive. Then she does the same to the other, and three other agitated wolves for good measure. And then she returns to the cottage.

 

This process repeats numerous times throughout the day, and she herself gets into a fight twice – first with her alpha male, and second with Grend, who had begun snapping at Futhar, losing his better senses for a few seconds too long. She beats both of them into submission, and then just wrestles for the fun of it, careful to prevent it from getting bloody with moon-rage.

 

The issue comes, though, at sunset.

 

Yet again obliged to go chase her pack back into the tree-line and away from each other's throats, Skulda is gone for less than ten minutes before she comes back to a sight that chills her blood.

 

.22.

 

“Nuh-uh!” Little Tifa Lockhart refuses, crossing her arms and scrunching her face. “I'm not stupid! No way!”

 

“Everyone knows werewolves only eat you at night.” Geir cajoles brightly, all smiles and freckles and orange hair, leaning on the crumbling brick wall by the path. He is a little older than the black haired daughter of the mayor, but not exactly wiser. “The door's open. It wouldn't be open if it was dangar...dangeroush. It'll be fine!” His two friends, the brothers Mund and Hal, join in with childish delight at a good adventure, nodding at the _obvious_ greater knowledge of their peer.

 

“No! It's a stupid idea and I'm not doing it.” She sticks out her tongue.

 

“Just go up and look in.” He urges, and pulls out the heavy guns. “I _dare_ you.”

 

Tifa visibly hesitates, wavering under the power of the Dare and the potential social humiliation of being too cowardly to fulfil it. “I...no!”

 

Geir grins. “ _Double dare._ ”

 

“ _Triple_ dare!” Adds Hal, eagerly.

 

“ _Kwadroople_ dare!”

 

“ _Infinity-_ ”

 

“Alright!” She snaps. “Alright, I'll do it.” They all cheer and urge her on. Tifa inhales, steeling herself, and without her entourage, hesitantly begins walking down the narrow path which leads to the distant Strife house, whose door is just visibly open.

 

It's not a particularly well-maintained path. Wrought of the mountain's stone, like everything else in Nibelheim, many of the rocks protrude or are missing, and are not worn quite so smooth as those in the village are, from the frequent foot-traffic. Hardy mountain lichens texture the stone here and there, having crept from their thick clusters in the wall-corners, and even some stubborn mosses. She's been aware that it was late in the afternoon, and that the sun was low, but she isn't prepared for how the sun is suddenly blotted out by the mountain peak in its descent, casting everything into shadow. Everything is at once colder and darker, and as she approaches she swears she can hear snarls and growls in the distance, from the trees.

 

She watches the distant tree-line keenly as she approaches, and sees traces of movement there. It feels ominous, forbidden, the combined thrill of doing something she ought not to along with the undeniable fear of those dark shapes by the tree-line. She focuses so intently on the forest as she walks that, with a shock, she suddenly finds herself before the door, and realises with horror that there are animal sounds _in there_ ,too, quieter, but definitely-

 

A strident, yapping cry sounds from inside. Frozen in fear, Tifa forces herself to crane her head and glance inside, and almost _passes out_ from what she sees. _Three_ massive wolves, all staring at her, ears straight up and heads low, very soft growls in their throats. Their stillness is far more unnerving than if they'd been pacing, even twitching – she's a Nibelheim girl, she knows what a predator looks like when its prey-drive is humming.

 

And then, there's a little one – just a big puppy, really, and paler than the others, struggling beneath the paws of the largest wolf. Wriggling, snapping, and-

 

There is a kind of... _flash_ , and suddenly the wolf jolts back with a yelp. But Tifa isn't particularly concerned about _that_ wolf, because the littlest one is running _straight_ _for her_.

 

Abruptly, she finds her legs, turns, and _runs._

 

She is certain of being chased, but doesn't look back or pause for a second. Until there is suddenly the sound of impact, a high pitched whine, and a loud, _angry_ snarl.

 

At that, Tifa turns and stares. She finds the largest wolf she has ever seen, gripping the small one roughly by the back of its neck and shaking it, growling lowly. Then it drops to the ground, frozen, unmoving. She notices, dimly, that the big wolf is wearing Materia, and one of them is glowing very brightly.

 

The wolf seems to distort in front of her. It takes several moments, as if a struggle, but the familiar form of Skulda Strife forms before her eyes. Except...not. Her eyes have an unholy gleam, her teeth protrude sharply around her lips, and her hands are curved with claws.

 

“ _What_ ...do you think you _rrrre_ doing, idiot child?!” She demands, in a voice half-growl, clearly an effort to voice. “If _ahh_ 'd been _seconds_ later, you'd be _joining us_ as a _wolf!_ ”

 

“...I'm sorry!” She wails, after a few moments, and buries her face in her scarf. “It was a dare! Geir and the others said werewolves are only dan-ger-ous at night!”

 

The woman stares for several long seconds, eyes blazing, and utterly still. Then she hisses _“They lied._ Get away from here! I'll probably have to fight off the whole pack from coming after you!”

 

She needs no further prompting. She turns and resumes sprinting, noting in the back of her mind that the three boys are _long_ gone, and that she is going to _kill_ them.

 

.23.

 

“Do you remember what happened, on the second moon-day?” Skulda demands of her son, the moment he seems able to hold both his human form and his wits together. He stares at her, blue eyes still a little glazed, and tilts his head in a very wolfish manner, flexing his fingers anxiously on the stone floor.

 

“...Not a lot.” He answers, flinching back from the fierceness of her gaze. “I...think I remember a girl, though. The Mayor's daughter?”

 

“Yes.” She confirms, icily. “Cloud. You're five years old, and still you don't have enough control. You're a _Strife_ , and you almost attacked someone! This _can't_ happen, Cloud, it _can't._ Do you understand that?” She steps close, right in front of him, looming considerably above his child height. Her eyes are like _daggers,_ her teeth violently exposed and every one of his wolf instincts scream for submission.

 

“...Yes, Ma.” He answers, quiet, eyes wide, shrinking down and baring his throat on reflex. She grabs at it instantly, the bite of her claws almost as petrifying as her teeth would have been, had she been wolf-form. He stays still, as still as he possibly can, whining lowly in his throat as he avoids her eyes.

 

“Tell me. The first story.”

 

He stutters for a moment, half-terrified by this side of his mother, the Strife _alpha_. Then he begins to recite the tale he knows by heart. “ 'I-I....In the oldest of days, when the Planet was still young, and the Ancients were pilgrims of life across the land, the Ancient Who Came to the Mountain bade Mada Skathi defend the peoples of the cold land, for the days were long and vicious there, and she could not abandon her duty. To make her strong, the Ancient-'”

 

And so he spoke it, the whole rambling tale, before the flinty eyes of his fierce, indomitable mother, shrinking before her gaze like a rabbit in the torchlight. He feels so tense by the time he finishes that he trembles, and glances up at her warily, just for a second.

 

“Good. Again.” She says, unmoving.

 

Cloud swallows, lowers his eyes again in submission, and shakily does as she bids.

 

“In the oldest of days, when the Planet was still young...”

 

.24.

 

In the end, he recites the First Story five times before she is satisfied.

 

“Remember it.” Skulda tells him, firm. “Wherever you go, and wherever you mark your territory, remember that you are a _Strife_ , and you are blessed with the wolf blood. You can withstand wounds humans can't. You can _feel_ the Planet's essence like no human ever can, and your duty of protection runs two thousand years deep. There is a voice in you that wakes whenever you touch Materia, or step close to a mako spring – _listen_ to it, when you feel your mind slipping away, and _remember_ that _everything you are_ is to protect. _Not_ to destroy.”

 

.26.

 

Skulda takes him alone to the forest's edge. She tells him to follow, and then runs.

 

It's all a little wolf can do to keep up with her – the mother wolf, and her long, loping stride, that devours miles more ravenously than any living creature upon the Planet. He runs until his lungs burn so much he literally _can't_ breathe, until he feels like his body is falling apart, and has to keep himself awash in spells just to keep going – and then, too, he can feel the tiny reservoir of his magic running low.

 

He doesn't notice his surroundings, he can't afford to. He jumps the boulders and fallen trees when he needs to, but beyond the constant blur of passing forest, he can't say where he followed his mother, nor how far. Only that finally, _finally_ , it ended, beside the yawning mouth of a cave he has never seen before in his life.

 

Cloud collapses in the dirt at his mother's feet, panting and wheezing and near-crying with pain. He watches blearily as her form ripples into humanity, then kneels by his side, fingers running gently across the long mane on his head. “This is the cave of blessing,” She tells him, softly. “You did well, to follow me all the way here. But you must go further. Get up.” Her fingers withdraw. She waits.

 

To get to his feet then is the most difficult thing he has ever done. Slowly, laboriously, he heaves up and stands unsteadily on his four exhausted limbs. She smiles, and licks him briefly on the snout. Then she stands, turns, and walks into the darkness of the cave. Wobbly, he totters forwards after her.

 

And then he discovers that the cave isn't so dark after all. It's _full_ of mako springs, green-blue and shining. He stares around in amazement, awe of the place pervading through his exertion-wrecked mind. He has never seen such a thing. And... _'cave of blessing'..._

 

“My father told me that this was a holy place. Where, in the old times, a Strife could come and hear the faintest whispers of the Planet, as if they were Ancients. The Lifestream has always welled here. It has even been said that here was where Mada Skathi was gifted.” She lowers her head, and Cloud suffers a jolt of uncertainty at the regret in her eyes. “But something changed. Recently, in my own lifetime...” She shakes her head. “But that will come later. Much later. First...”

 

Skulda kneels again. She plucks his necklaces, arm-bands and materia away, one by one, until his body is bare of all but his own thick fur. He looks up at her, instincts screaming, and whines softly.

 

She picks him up by the scruff and tosses him into the nearest mako pool.

 

.27.

 

Cloud doesn't know how long he's in there, burning, every inch of his fur, skin and soul scalded by the green, acidic tide. It feels like an _age._

 

But then he's _out_ , blessedly free, mako dripping from his fur in splattering sheets, and the cold mountain air soothing his ravaged nerves. He feels himself being gently lowered to the even colder stone floor, and curls up, tail between his legs, whimpering pitifully. His every sense is alive with pain, and he can't think, can't hear, can't feel anything but the sickening green burn.

 

He doesn't know how long he lays there, quivering and insensate. But then he begins to pick out a low, soothing hum, that steadily over a timeless period forms into words.

 

“-said it was always harder for the males. That sometimes, drastic action had to be taken to train you in the sensitivity you need, to be a Strife.” The voice is low, gentle, and deeply sad. “I'm sorry, Cloud, my little cub.” A pause, as his ears tentatively perk up and turn in her direction. “Can you hear me?”

 

He whines softly in response.

 

“Good.” Skulda murmurs. “Now, Cloud. I told you, earlier. Whenever you cast a spell, you reach for Materia with something inside you. Something as natural and as vital as blood. You reached for it on the second moon-day, and shocked Kjora without using Materia. Reach for it now, and _listen._ ”

 

Cloud _struggles._ He's still in so much pain, his nerves on fire, burning at him with every twitch of movement. But he struggles, and does what she says. He reaches into the little flows, like underground rivers, in all of his limbs, that stem from the source of his magic, that absolute subterranean core of life within him that he knows better than his own scent...

 

And he flinches with shock, as he touches it, and the magic-sense runs across his mind. It's _strong._ Loud, vibrant, so powerful it's dizzying, like the howls of a pack three-hundred strong, _overwhelming_ . It has _never_ been like this.

 

“It's loud, isn't it?” His mother remarks. “Part of that is where we are – here, the Planet's voice is louder. But it's also the mako. Listen deeper. You can hear Her.”

 

He reaches, deafening himself in the sheer noise of the energy, deeper and deeper, until it's so loud it's silent, and he can't hear a thing – all he has is a sense of ubiquitous brightness, burning through his eyes. And there, in that absolute, searing silence, he hears it.

 

_/Floor of dead pine nourishing soil/frost takes life of rabbit/falcon-egg hatches on the cliff-edge two more dead in shell/clouds gather overhead rain soon/_

 

Cloud freezes.

 

_/mother-dragon turns eggs over something stirs/roots in the earth/burrowing rodent ill/beehive frozen for coldest-time-on-tall-stone/many little squeaking rodent lives in human cellar dying birthing mating caught in the cat's claws/_

 

It's too much. It's _everything_ , every tree, every mouse, every monster, every blade of grass and rotting pine needle, every ebb and flicker of the Lifestream as it gives and takes, gives and takes, a million times each second. He _feels_ the mountain range, Nibelheim, he feels the forest and the stone and the secret heart of the Planet, twined in the river of life. The little human lives in the village are so _tiny_ – gods – and _how_ were there so many monsters in the Mansion so close to town? It's too much. Too much. Too much to feel, hear, know. He keens out loud, from the shock of it, barely able to comprehend any awareness of his body at all, not beyond _this,_ not beyond

 

_life/death/all creation_

 

especially not when he begins to fall in deeper, when _cold life on the cold-tall-stone_ expands to _blizzard on westward-cold-tall-stone/many-deaths_ and he _knows_ it all, the Planet doesn't think names or places, it just _knows_ , knows every mountain like he knows his fingers, every river like a trickle of sweat down his skin, _everything_ , and it's all crammed in all so loud so loud too much and then it's _red-stone-warm sheltered climate from sea air sand layered rock blood filters close to surface/satisfaction/life-death-life/no wrong-biting-parasite_ and suddenly Cloud comprehends the _agony_ of what is surely Mako Reactors, unendurable sores on the Lifestream, like a needle pulling the marrow from his bones-

 

He cries with both his voice, and something deeper. The background hum of the rot and birth and end of all nearby living and dying things, all faraway living and dying things, distances itself, still there, but unfocused. Something else comes to the foreground. Cloud shudders, feeling like every inch of his flesh, mind, magic and soul are being pored over, held in transient hands that turn him over and over, inspecting him with an omnipotent gaze.

 

 _/wolf and man young/_ It observes. / _not-grown, strong for its age/descendent of chosen/new-guardian of the line/seeks control to protect/trembles in the pore where blood wells/stained in blood/_ Moments pass, he shivers as it turns him over and over in its power. _/young guardian well-born,/_ It decides, finally. _/will grow strong, strong life./_

 

And then the mako burn doesn't hurt any more.

 

It's the last thing he comprehends before all awareness falls away.

 

.28.

 

He never loses control again.

 

“My father told me about what it's like – conversing with the Planet when you're soaked with mako.” Skulda tells him, wryly, when he questions her. She lays down and stretches out on the cool soil. “But no – I never needed it. I've listened to the Planet, but it was only whispers, words. Nothing like what you experienced – being drenched in Her awareness like that, having every inch of what you are picked apart and pieced back together. Certainly, I've considered doing it, but...” She shakes her head.

 

“Why would you _ever_ want to do that?” Cloud demands, incredulous, from where he sits beside her. All the pack are around them, and he has to push more than one curious nose away, all of them huffing excitedly at the overpowering smell of _life_ and _magic_ seeping from his skin which hasn't faded since the last moon. “It was...and I will _never_ forget it, but it was just-” He struggles to find the words, and fails. He hadn't woken for _weeks_ after the event – it had taken the moon to finally pull him from slumber.

 

“Because you will never, ever have the slightest difficulty with control again.” She answers, with quiet envy. “Being perused by the Planet like that changes you, in many ways. Being exposed to Her awareness, too...I'm told that, when the Lifestream rises up at the full moon, your only difficulty is extricating yourself from the Planet's awareness.”

 

He smiles slightly, remembering the first full moon afterwards, when he'd been positively _dizzy_ with the heartbeats and myriad energies all shifting and whispering around him. It had been difficult to realise he had a body at all, and beyond that...the stagnant stink of human magic was somehow petty, in comparison to how much _life_ flowed by unhindered by its foulness. “So you have to struggle at moon-days, ma?” He inquires, curious.

 

She nods, frowning. “Not a lot. It's better than it was. But sometimes, if I get carried away...” She shakes her head. “I've never lost control, not since I was three. But I can get close. Anyway – you're almost six now, Cloud, and you're getting strong. I think it's about time you started your human schooling...and that the pack and I go back to roaming the far territory.”

 

He sits up immediately, back straight. “You're leaving?” He questions, disbelievingly, and despite himself a little hurt. “I'll be alone?”

 

Skulda sits up herself, to meet his eyes. “Yes, Cloud.” She replies, evenly. “You'll be alone, for the school days. School is four days a week. The rest of the time, you can spend out of town. If you can track us and catch up to us, you can join us as you like. But you'll have to start hunting for yourself now, and keeping the home ranges.”

 

Fear hits him, and he trembles a little, just for a moment. _You've been waiting for this,_ he reminds himself. _For years. Your whole life._ “Okay, ma.” He accepts, lowering his head.

 

With that, she plunges a hand into her pocket and withdraws a tangle of various amulets and marvellous glimmering things. Including, to his shock, four new Materia. “Here, Cloud,” She beckons, and sets to work fastening two leather and metal straps around each wrist, each adorned with one of the Materia. Then she puts the carved Strife sigil around his neck, just like that which her red orb is situated in, and starts braiding crystal and bone bead decorations into the shorter hair behind his ears. “Change, will you? I want to see how well the Transform array is working.” Wide eyed, he obeys, and she nods with satisfaction at her handiwork, adding a few more decorations to his fur that wouldn't translate to human form.

 

Once she's done, he produces a large, reflective sheet of ice and stares at his distorted double. He's almost as thoroughly adorned as _Skulda_ is. “...why?” he struggles to ask, after shifting back.

 

She smiles at him fondly, and cards her fingers through his long hair. “You're growing up, Cloud.” She says. “You may not age as fast as a wolf would, but you will be smart and powerful long before a human child would be, even if it takes you ten more years to grow fully. From next week, you'll be fending for yourself. You can be responsible with these Materia, now. And you can now begin to take up the duties of a Strife, even if you are still young.”

 

.29.

 

Cloud walks, with a slow and measured stride, into the classroom, hearing the whispers erupt around him. His ears twitch at the sussurus of it, and he takes in all the scents of the children, and all the scents of who has been here on a regular basis. Like most buildings in Nibelheim, the school is small, built of cobbled mountain stone fitted together with mortar. Vibrant educational aids hang on the walls, defiant in their attempt to brighten up the room. Two windows adorn the left wall, their glass steamed up. Shinra's electric bounty shows in the four radiators and the electric lights overhead, which he stares at curiously. There are no electrics in the Strife house, after all. Then he turns away, sniffing, distracted despite himself by first the overwhelming smells of _curious/fear/bravado/nervous/anxious_ hammering him from all corners of the room, and then the older smells, _restless/young-energy-contained/mischief_ and the smell of the older person who most frequently stands at the front of the room, a man past his prime who smokes too much and has an unhealthy smell to him, and has been troubled by something recently.

 

Then Cloud pauses at a familiar scent. He turns his head to it, and inhales twice, effortlessly placing its source even as he discerns the pattern in it – a little black-haired girl, who stares as obtrusively as everyone else, but sits alone, and is not whispering. She smells like _small-fear/anxious/careful._ Then he remembers, and flushes red with guilt and embarrassment. He hesitates, and then determinedly makes his way over to her. _You're a Strife,_ Cloud reminds himself. _You're meant for protection, and tried to attack her._ And then he's at her desk, bearing the eyes of her and the whole class, who are disturbingly silent. He doesn't like silence – it's never a good sign, in the forest.

 

He sits down at the empty desk beside her, one of many in the room. “I remember you,” He says quietly, so that others will be unlikely to hear with their pitiful human ears. “I nearly attacked you on the full moon, six months ago. I wanted to say sorry – I'm better at the moons now, it won't happen again.”

 

Her mouth moves soundlessly for several moments, and her face is struck with such shock, he can _smell_ it, that he quails a little inside, wondering if it were a mistake to speak to her. Then she stammers “That...that was y-you? The little wolf?”

 

“I'm not little!” He protests immediately, his Strife dignity falling away with astonishing speed. “I'm big enough to run and hunt alone, now!”

 

She continues to stare. Then, unexpectedly, she puts a hand over her mouth as the distinctive sound of girlish giggling erupts. It's an odd sound, but close enough to excited yipping that he can relate to it. “You're just like normal boys, aren't you?” She comments, smiling now. It's a definite improvement, but he can't help but be baffled by the sentiment. She smells sincere, though – and he is side-tracked for a moment, wondering at the lingering smells of her recent meals, and what strange things humans eat. Something sweet and almost like...bread, or wheat, for her morning meal. It's an oddly herbivorous smell, and he feels a momentary rush of disorientation, yet again, at the thought of something not-wolf being a person.

 

“I'm not a normal boy.” He tells her, slowly, and she rolls her eyes at him. She has so many baffling facial expressions. His mother has the basics – but she, like him, spends far more time among wolves than people, and he imagines that the years have eroded at whatever she had learned in human schooling. As a result, he is left vaguely recalling some of the exile's motions for aid interpreting how her eyes had moved, which had seemed to convey exasperation, sometimes light-hearted mockery. They are far more human than his mother, after all, and had a lot of strange not-wolf body language they'd never quite managed to rid themselves of.

 

“I know that, silly!” Comes the reprimand, and then she's giggling again. She doesn't smell quite as excited as the yipping would indicate – so maybe it's different? Enjoyment, certainly. Amusement? Like a lesser laugh? Wolves don't laugh, but it's one of the things his mother _has_ translated to wolf-shape, and he knows the meaning of it well enough.

 

He is the one staring at her, now, as he tries to discern what exactly she is finding amusing. “What?” Cloud demands, a little put out. Is he so easily dismissed? Laughed at?

 

“Nothing,” She replies cheerfully, and then holds out a hand. “I'm Tifa Lockhart.” He recognises it as a human greeting thing, much like sane creatures would sniff each other on meeting, to catch the scent of character.

 

Carefully, he takes it, and shakes. He doesn't know how delicate human females are, so he is especially careful. “Cloud Strife.” Their hands pull apart, and despite the odd look she gives him, it feels near obligatory for him to take his hand up to his nose to sniff at the closer smell of her, nose twitching at its story. The hand-shaking seems woefully inadequate, as a greeting gesture. He knows that humans have terrible noses, and couldn't hope to get what he could from a sniff. It feels almost unfair.

 

He wonders, honestly, how humans manage to cooperate or trust each other at all, if they know nothing about each other or their character when they meet. How do they know how they should behave? Or what they should do? If the stranger is one to test, to welcome, or to send away with fangs bared?

 

Tifa opens her mouth to say something, but then the teacher walks in, that greying man with the stench of smoke and malaise all over him. Cloud's attention turns his way, nostrils flaring, and that's the end of talking for the moment.

 

.30.

 

“You wear lots of jewellery.” Tifa tells him seriously, during lunch break, as she settles on a little bench. The school's yard is the only playground in town, much to the dismay of most of the children, who have clearly begun to associate the feeling of their repressed energy with the institution. Cloud can empathise. He is not just a child, brimming with energy, but a _wolf_ child. Sitting still for the whole morning had felt _wrong_ , like nothing had before, and had itched like a closing wound every passing minute. He honestly isn't sure how he'll endure several _years_ of this.

 

“...Yes.” Cloud agrees, sitting cautiously beside her. He notices her pulling food out of the bag she'd bought with her, and blinks at it. He'd smelled it earlier, of course, but hasn't been sure why she was carrying food around. “So that's why you have that with you. You're eating it now?”

 

“Of course.” She replies, glancing at him. “It's my lunch. Don't you have one?”

 

He shakes his head, yellow hair and its various adornments swaying with the motion. “No. I don't eat that much.” It's the way of wolves. One big meal will keep for weeks, if necessary, though he is young and prefers to eat every few days, and as a werewolf, has to eat significantly more than a regular wolf would. It doesn't bode well for how much hunting he'll have to do, soon. For a moment, the prospect of conducting his own hunts in the treacherous mountains looms, ominously, over his head. Then he shakes it away. _Later_ , he tells himself.

 

“You don't get hungry?”

 

“Well, sometimes. But if I get hungry, I'll just go kill something, and eat it. Like that pigeon.” He points at one of the birds which habitually wanders the town, looking for leavings any leavings to peck at. They always make excellent snacks. Tifa looks slightly alarmed at the idea, though. Not a lot, because it isn't particularly prominent in her scent _or_ her posture.

 

“You...don't eat people, do you?” She asks, warily. He immediately bristles, feeling prickles of hurt and deep offence. He has heard the words of the humans, over the years. He has heard what people say.

 

“Of course not! Strifes are here to protect people, not eat them!” Cloud tries to stop himself from reacting too much. She doesn't look or smell concerned enough for her to be genuinely worried about it. _Just stories_ , he thinks to himself angrily. _Just the things humans say, which aren't true._

 

Her hands come up. “Sorry, sorry. It's just, there's a lot of rumours, you know. Werewolf stories.” She looks away, the gesture of which is very un-confrontational to Cloud's wolf mind. He settles himself and spares a quick glance around the small playground, where Nibelheim's meagre supply of children play. Many are quite conspicuously whispering and pointing at where he and Tifa sit. He sighs, uneasily feeling the absence of his ears, which would normally be low and to the sides, with his current discomfort. The lack of ears and a tail make him feel oddly crippled, when it comes to communicating. He knows humans have different ways for their bodies to express how they feel, but it's so _strange._

 

“What sort of rumours?” He asks after a moment, a bit more sharply than he intends. “That we're a disease? That we're just monsters pretending to be people?” She looks incredibly uncomfortable, so he shakes his head. “Never mind. We're not like that, though.”

 

Tifa looks up. “You said you're better now?” Her eyes flicker with something; a hint of old fear. “Than when you almost attacked me, I mean. So you're like your mum, then? You can control yourself?”

 

“Yeah. I get dizzy now but I won't attack anyone.” He confirms. “My ma was _so_ mad when I nearly did that, you know. She threw me into a mako pool.” At her look of horror, because he's pretty sure something like that would _kill_ a human boy, he hastens to say “It's fine! I got better. She did it to help, I swear!” He doesn't want the girl to think badly of his mother, when she does only what she needs to.

 

The girl stares at him for a while, then blinks. “...If you say so.” She says. He watches her look him over. “You don't _look_ all burned and mutated.” She says, finally. “And you _really_ have a lot of jewellery. What's it for?”

 

He looks down, glancing at the many thick corded pendants he wears, along with the bands his wrists. “To look pretty?” He offers, helplessly, not sure what else jewellery would do. “I mean, only adult Strifes usually wear this much stuff, so there's that. And Ma says some of the talismans are blessed. And the main chest-piece has my Materia. See?” He taps one of the many on his chest. Tifa's eyes go impressively wide after what he's indicating registers.

 

“ _Those_ are Materia?” She exclaims.

 

“Yup. Haven't you ever seen Materia before?” Cloud asks, amused. She shakes her head. “Well, these are all natural, so they're smaller than the manufactured ones, and more blue than green. The ones I have on my chest are all linked. Ma made it, with all this fancy wire stuff in the cord. I can't do it yet, but I'm learning.”

 

“That's really cool.” Tifa admits. “Doesn't it all just break when you turn into a wolf, though?”

 

He grins, and shifts, shuffling on the bench to not fall off. He is _significantly_ larger in wolf shape than human skin, after all. Tifa visibly starts beside him, staring with wide eyes. Several shrieks sound across the playground, and he turns to observe their sources curiously, sniffing at the _fear_ spiking into the air before looking back at Tifa. He sits back and paws at his chest-piece, which had started as one mass of cord and now was many, all woven together and interfering with his fur. He quickly shifts back, though, not wanting to cause too much fuss with the other children. “So, did you see?”

 

“...Yes,” She nods quickly, her eyes still wide. “I think you got bigger since before.”

 

Cloud straightens, pleased. Tifa laughs, any residual tension easing out of her frame, though the same can't be said of the other children. “Told you.” He tells her, smugly.

 

“Yeah,” The girl agrees, lips quirking. Then she hesitates in a way Cloud thinks might be shy. “Could you...turn into a wolf again? It'd be fun to play like that, I think.”

 

He straightens, both very surprised and _very_ pleased. He had not been expecting such acceptance from a human child, much less the Mayor's daughter he'd almost gotten exiled a few months prior. He tilts his head at her, inhaling her hesitant sincerity, then smiles. A moment later he ripples back into fur and his young body, looking up at Tifa with his blue eyes, waiting. After a moment of abject staring, she reaches out, slowly, still fighting past her human uncertainty with wild things. He doesn't move, though, and is shortly leaning entirely against his will into her hand as she scratches at his ears.

 

 

“Just like a big puppy.” She tells him, reluctant delight in her voice. “You're so _fluffy_ , and your hair sticks up almost as much as it does when you're a person.” He feels vaguely like correcting her on the counts of personhood, but in the end, she can make incorrect remarks all she likes if she keeps scratching his ears.

 

She stops, though, and before he can get too disappointed, Tifa is abandoning her lunch-box to concoct games that take full advantage of his wolf shape.

 

Even when the playground attendant, pale-faced and stinking of fear, draws close to ruin the fun and tell Tifa to get off his back, it doesn't diminish the enjoyment. And even though he's a wolf, and better games would be rolling and rough-housing, he's quite pleased with the alternative.

 

He thinks he'll have little difficulty, being friends with this human girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next few chapters are going to be reaallly Tifa-heavy, just to warn you. Like seriously. Lots of Tifa. Also she's a year older than Cloud here, because.  
> No romance though. My Tifa is awesome but I've never quite gotten over my aversion to that pairing.
> 
> Also, apologies for the wide paragraph spacing. This is the only way I can keep my formatting.


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